Lots of sitting down on the job

SITTING PRETTY: Sue Painting in one of the new line of deck chairs her husband, Peter, is creating in his Castlecliff shed.PHOTO/BEVAN CONLEY 251013WCBRWOOD01C

A Wanganui couple are working hard to turn their cottage industry into something a little more permanent.

Sue and Peter Painting are creating colourful outdoor furniture from their Castlecliff home and have high hopes of attracting enough business to accelerate their production.

At the moment, Mr Painting is working full-time for Downers while his wife looks after the marketing side of things. But it's all being done on a shoestring budget.

After work and on weekends the qualified former carpenter dresses and cuts out the timber for the Cape Cod chairs and folding canvas-and-timber deck chairs. Mrs Painting's job is to paint the chairs before both pitch in to assemble them.

"We used to make them when we lived south of Auckland and then made mainly Cape Cod chairs," she said.

"We shifted here about five years ago and we decided to branch out."

They source all their material locally where they can, including timber, paint and fasteners.

The Paintings' product line includes Cape Cod chairs in large and small (for children) sizes, small tables, bench seats and now the deck chairs.

"As far as we know, we're the only ones making smaller-sized chairs for the little ones," Mrs Painting said.

The folding canvas and timber deck chairs are the latest addition to their range. It was a design Mr Painting concocted.

"I told him what I wanted, because I remembered deck chairs from years ago," she said.

Their marketing budget is not extensive, so they use Facebook to get their product noticed: Awesome Outdoor Furniture NZ.

Mrs Painting said they don't want to take the chairs to weekend markets because they could easily be damaged while being loaded on and off the ute.

"But if we were to pursue this full-time, though, we'd have to put a lot more effort into that side of things," she said.

She said starting up in the outdoor furniture making business was tough, and juggling the demands of promoting their chairs and buying the raw materials was a struggle initially

The adult-sized chairs sell for $295 and the smaller ones for $195. The same price covers the bench seats.